![Beginning Odyssey](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Beginning_Odyssey.svg)
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the
Greek language
Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southe ...
used in
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of Classical Antiquity, classical antiquity ( AD 600), th ...
and the
ancient world
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...
from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods:
Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the '' terminus ad quem'' for th ...
(),
Dark Ages (), the
Archaic period (), and the
Classical period ().
Ancient Greek was the language of
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
and of
fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and
philosophers
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. since the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
. This article primarily contains information about the
Epic and Classical periods of the language.
From the
Hellenistic period
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
(), Ancient Greek was followed by
Koine Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
, which is regarded as a separate historical stage, although its earliest form closely resembles
Attic Greek and its latest form approaches
Medieval Greek
Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Fall of Co ...
. There were several
regional dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek developed into Koine.
Dialects
Ancient Greek was a
pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are
Attic and
Ionic,
Aeolic
In linguistics, Aeolic Greek (), also known as Aeolian (), Lesbian or Lesbic dialect, is the set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia; in Thessaly; in the Aegean island of Lesbos; and in the Greek colonies of Aeolis in Anato ...
,
Arcadocypriot, and
Doric Doric may refer to:
* Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece
** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians
* Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture
* Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode
* Doric dialect (Scotland)
* Doric ...
, many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
, while others are attested only in inscriptions.
There are also several historical forms.
Homeric Greek
Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the ''Iliad'', ''Odyssey'', and Homeric Hymns. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from Arcadocypriot, and ...
is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the
epic poems
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
, the ''
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...
'' and the ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...
'', and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects.
History
The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common
Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is
Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the '' terminus ad quem'' for th ...
, but its relationship to the historical dialects and the historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form.
Scholars assume that major ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the
Dorian invasions—and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to the historical
Dorians
The Dorians (; el, Δωριεῖς, ''Dōrieîs'', singular , ''Dōrieús'') were one of the four major ethnic groups into which the Hellenes (or Greeks) of Classical Greece divided themselves (along with the Aeolians, Achaeans, and Ionian ...
. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians.
The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from the center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation.
One standard formulation for the dialects is:
* West Group
** Northwest Greek
**
Doric Doric may refer to:
* Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece
** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians
* Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture
* Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode
* Doric dialect (Scotland)
* Doric ...
*
Aeolic Group
** Aegean/Asiatic Aeolic
** Thessalian
** Boeotian
* Ionic-Attic Group
**
Attic
**
Ionic
*** Euboean and colonies in Italy
*** Cycladic
*** Asiatic Ionic
*
Arcadocypriot Greek
Arcadocypriot, or southern Achaean, was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, suggests that Arcadocypriot is its desc ...
** Arcadian
** Cypriot
West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West is called 'East Greek'.
Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age.
Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree.
Pamphylian Greek
Pamphylian was a little-attested dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Pamphylia, on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Its origins and relation to other Greek dialects are uncertain, though a number of scholars have proposed isoglosses with ...
, spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence.
Regarding the speech of the
ancient Macedonians
The Macedonians ( el, Μακεδόνες, ''Makedónes'') were an ancient tribe that lived on the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios in the northeastern part of mainland Greece. Essentially an ancient Greek people ...
diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in the
Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in
Macedonian, such as the
Pella curse tablet
The Pella curse tablet is a text written in a distinct Doric Greek idiom, found in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedon, in 1986. Ιt contains a curse or magic spell ( grc, κατάδεσμος, '' katadesmos'') inscribed on a lead scroll, dated t ...
, as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note.
Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as
Pella curse tablet
The Pella curse tablet is a text written in a distinct Doric Greek idiom, found in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedon, in 1986. Ιt contains a curse or magic spell ( grc, κατάδεσμος, '' katadesmos'') inscribed on a lead scroll, dated t ...
, Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that
ancient Macedonian was a
Northwest Doric dialect,
which shares isoglosses with its neighboring
Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern
Thessaly
Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...
.
Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including
Cretan Doric), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including
Laconian, the dialect of
Sparta
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...
), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including
Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to:
*Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible:
**First Epistle to the Corinthians
**Second Epistle to the Corinthians
**Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox)
*A demonym relating to ...
).
The
Lesbian dialect was
Aeolic Greek.
All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects.
The dialects outside the Ionic group are known mainly from inscriptions, notable exceptions being:
* fragments of the works of the poet
Sappho from the island of
Lesbos
Lesbos or Lesvos ( el, Λέσβος, Lésvos ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece. It is separated from Asia Minor by the nar ...
, in Aeolian, and
* the poems of the
Boeotia
Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia ( el, Βοιωτία; modern: ; ancient: ), formerly known as Cadmeis, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its ...
n poet
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar ...
and other lyric poets, usually in Doric.
After the conquests of
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...
in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as
Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on
Attic Greek, but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the
Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of
Demotic Greek. By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into
Medieval Greek
Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Fall of Co ...
.
Related languages
Phrygian is an extinct
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
language of West and Central
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...
, which is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
.
[Brixhe, Cl. "Le Phrygien". In Fr. Bader (ed.), ''Langues indo-européennes'', pp. 165-178, Paris: CNRS Editions.] Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
(see also
Graeco-Armenian
Graeco-Armenian (or Helleno-Armenian) is the hypothetical common ancestor of Greek and Armenian that postdates Proto-Indo-European. Its status is somewhat similar to that of the Italo-Celtic grouping: each is widely considered plausible without b ...
) and
Indo-Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian languages (also Indo-Iranic languages or Aryan languages) constitute the largest and southeasternmost extant branch of the Indo-European language family (with over 400 languages), predominantly spoken in the geographical subre ...
(see
Graeco-Aryan
Graeco-Aryan, or Graeco-Armeno-Aryan, is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family that would be the ancestor of Greek, Armenian, and the Indo-Iranian languages.
The Graeco-Armeno-Aryan group supposedly branched off from the parent ...
).
Phonology
Differences from Proto-Indo-European
Ancient Greek differs from
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
(PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In
phonotactics
Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
, ancient Greek words could end only in a vowel or ; final stops were lost, as in "milk", compared with "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes,
notably the following:
* PIE became at the beginning of a word (
debuccalization
Debuccalization or deoralization is a sound change or alternation in which an oral consonant loses its original place of articulation and moves it to the glottis (usually , , or ). The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspir ...
): Latin ', English ''six'', ancient Greek .
* PIE was
elided
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
between vowels after an intermediate step of debuccalization: Sanskrit ', Latin ' (where ''s'' > ''r'' by
rhotacism
Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language ...
), Greek * > * > ancient Greek (), Attic () "of a kind".
* PIE became (debuccalization) or (
fortition
Fortition, also known as strengthening, is a consonantal change that increases the degree of stricture. It is the opposite of the more common lenition. For example, a fricative or an approximant may become a stop (i.e. becomes or becomes ). A ...
): Sanskrit ', ancient Greek "who" (relative pronoun); Latin ', English ''yoke'', ancient Greek .
* PIE , which occurred in
Mycenaean and some non-Attic dialects, was lost: early Doric , English ''work'', Attic Greek .
* PIE and Mycenaean labiovelars changed to plain stops (labials, dentals, and velars) in the later Greek dialects: for instance, PIE became or in Attic: Attic Greek "where?", Latin '; Attic Greek , Latin ' "who?".
* PIE "voiced aspirated" stops were devoiced and became the aspirated stops in ancient Greek.
Phonemic inventory
The pronunciation of ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek. Ancient Greek had
long and short vowels; many
diphthongs;
double
A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another.
Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to:
Film and television
* Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character
* ...
and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated
stops; and a
pitch accent
A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...
. In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as (
iotacism
Iotacism ( el, ιωτακισμός, ''iotakismos'') or itacism is the process of vowel shift by which a number of vowels and diphthongs converged towards the pronunciation in post-classical Greek and Modern Greek. The term "iotacism" refers t ...
). Some of the stops and
glides in diphthongs have become
fricatives
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
, and the pitch accent has changed to a
stress accent. Many of the changes took place in the
Koine Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes.
The examples below represent Attic Greek in the 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent.
Consonants
occurred as an allophone of that was used before velars and as an allophone of before nasals. was probably voiceless when word-initial and geminated (written and ). was assimilated to before voiced consonants.
Vowels
raised to , probably by the 4th century BC.
Morphology
![AGMA Ostrakon Cimon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/AGMA_Ostrakon_Cimon.jpg)
Greek, like all of the older
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
forms. In ancient Greek,
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
s (including proper nouns) have five
cases (
nominative,
genitive,
dative,
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
, and
vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numer ...
), three
genders (
masculine,
feminine, and
neuter), and three
numbers
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
(singular,
dual, and
plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
).
Verb
A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
s have four
moods (
indicative
A realis mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...
,
imperative,
subjunctive, and
optative
The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mo ...
) and three
voices (active, middle, and
passive
Passive may refer to:
* Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive
* Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works
* Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of o ...
), as well as three
persons
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
(first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of
tenses
In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.
The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, ...
and
aspect
Aspect or Aspects may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art
* Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company
* Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England
* ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
(generally simply called "tenses"): the
present,
future, and
imperfect
The imperfect ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to ...
are
imperfective
The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a g ...
in aspect; the
aorist,
present perfect
The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and perfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences. The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar to refer to forms like " ...
,
pluperfect
The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...
and
future perfect
The future perfect is a verb form or construction used to describe an event that is expected or planned to happen before a time of reference in the future, such as ''will have finished'' in the English sentence "I will have finished by tomorrow." ...
are
perfective
The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the i ...
in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice.
Augment
The indicative of past
tenses
In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.
The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, ...
adds (conceptually, at least) a prefix /e-/, called the
augment
Augment or augmentation may refer to:
Language
*Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages
* Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...
. This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the
indicative
A realis mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...
of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist).
The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes ''e'' (stems beginning with ''r'', however, add ''er''). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel:
* a, ā, e, ē → ē
* i, ī → ī
* o, ō → ō
* u, ū → ū
* ai → ēi
* ei → ēi or ei
* oi → ōi
* au → ēu or au
* eu → ēu or eu
* ou → ou
Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is ''e'' → ''ei''. The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of ''s'' between vowels, or that of the letter ''w'', which affected the augment when it was word-initial.
In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, (I attack) goes to in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: goes to in the aorist.
Following
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
, especially
epic poetry.
The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below.
Reduplication
Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (Note that a few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of
reduplication are:
* Syllabic reduplication: Most verbs beginning with a single consonant, or a cluster of a stop with a sonorant, add a syllable consisting of the initial consonant followed by ''e''. An aspirated consonant, however, reduplicates in its unaspirated equivalent (see
Grassmann's law).
* Augment: Verbs beginning with a vowel, as well as those beginning with a cluster other than those indicated previously (and occasionally for a few other verbs) reduplicate in the same fashion as the augment. This remains in all forms of the perfect, not just the indicative.
* Attic reduplication: Some verbs beginning with an ''a'', ''e'' or ''o'', followed by a sonorant (or occasionally ''d'' or ''g''), reduplicate by adding a syllable consisting of the initial vowel and following consonant, and lengthening the following vowel. Hence ''er'' → ''erēr'', ''an'' → ''anēn'', ''ol'' → ''olōl'', ''ed'' → ''edēd''. This is not actually specific to
Attic Greek, despite its name, but it was generalized in Attic. This originally involved reduplicating a cluster consisting of a
laryngeal and sonorant, hence with normal Greek development of laryngeals. (Forms with a stop were analogous.)
Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, (root ) has the perfect stem (not *) because it was originally , with perfect , becoming through compensatory lengthening.
Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by ''i''. A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs.
Writing system
The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing (circa 1450 BC) are in the syllabic script
Linear B. Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...
became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in
boustrophedon
Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the le ...
style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with
accents and breathing marks,
interword spacing
In punctuation, a word divider is a glyph that separates written words. In languages which use the Latin alphabet, Latin, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic, and Arabic alphabets, as well as other scripts of Europe and West Asia, the word divider is a b ...
, modern
punctuation
Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
, and sometimes
mixed case
Capitalization (American English) or capitalisation (British English) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in lower case, in writing systems with a case distinction. The term a ...
, but these were all introduced later.
Sample texts
The beginning of
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...
exemplifies the Archaic period of ancient Greek (see
Homeric Greek
Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the ''Iliad'', ''Odyssey'', and Homeric Hymns. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from Arcadocypriot, and ...
for more details):
The beginning of
Apology by
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
exemplifies
Attic Greek from the Classical period of ancient Greek:
:
Using the
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
:
:
Transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the
Erasmian scheme:
:'
Translated into English:
:How you, men of Athens, are feeling under the power of my accusers, I do not know: actually, even I myself almost forgot who I was because of them, they spoke so persuasively. And yet, loosely speaking, nothing they have said is true.
Modern use
In education
The study of Ancient Greek in European countries in addition to
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
occupied an important place in the syllabus from the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
until the beginning of the 20th century. This was true as well in the United States, where many of the nation’s Founders received a classically based education.
Latin was emphasized in American colleges, but Greek also was required in the Colonial and Early National eras, and the study of ancient Greece became increasingly popular in the mid-to-late Nineteenth Century, the age of American philhellenism. In particular, female intellectuals of the era designated the mastering of ancient Greek as essential in becoming a “woman of letters.”
Ancient Greek is still taught as a compulsory or optional subject especially at traditional or elite schools throughout Europe, such as
public schools and
grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...
s in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. It is compulsory in the
liceo classico
Liceo classico or Ginnasio (literally ''classical lyceum'') is the oldest, public secondary school type in Italy. Its educational curriculum spans over five years, when students are generally about 14 to 19 years of age.
Until 1969, this was ...
in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, in the in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, in some classes in
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, in (grammar school – orientation: classical languages) in
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
, in classical studies in
ASO in Belgium and it is optional in the
humanities-oriented ''gymnasium'' in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
(usually as a third language after Latin and English, from the age of 14 to 18). In 2006/07, 15,000 pupils studied ancient Greek in Germany according to the
Federal Statistical Office of Germany
The Federal Statistical Office (german: Statistisches Bundesamt, shortened ''Destatis'') is a federal authority of Germany. It reports to the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
The Office is responsible for collecting, processing, presenting and ...
, and 280,000 pupils studied it in Italy. It is a compulsory subject alongside Latin in the humanities branch of the
Spanish bachillerato. Ancient Greek is also taught at most major
universities
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
worldwide, often combined with
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
as part of the study of
classics. In 2010 it was offered in three primary schools in the
UK, to boost children's language skills, and was one of seven foreign languages which primary schools could teach 2014 as part of a major drive to boost education standards.
Ancient Greek is also taught as a compulsory subject in all
gymnasiums and
lyceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Generally in that type of school the t ...
s in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
. Starting in 2001, an annual international competition ( gr, Διαγωνισμός στην Αρχαία Ελληνική Γλώσσα και Γραμματεία) was run for upper secondary students through the Greek
Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs, with Greek language and cultural organisations as co-organisers. It appears to have ceased in , having failed to gain the recognition and acceptance of teachers.
Modern real-world usage
Modern authors rarely write in ancient Greek, though
Jan Křesadlo
Václav Jaroslav Karel Pinkava (; 9 December 1926 – 13 August 1995), better known by his pen name Jan Křesadlo (), was a Czech psychologist who was also a prizewinning novelist and poet.
An anti-communist, Pinkava emigrated to Britain with ...
wrote some poetry and prose in the language, and ''
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' is a 1997 fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the ''Harry Potter'' series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, a youn ...
'',
some volumes of
Asterix
''Asterix'' or ''The Adventures of Asterix'' (french: Astérix or , "Asterix the Gauls, Gaul") is a ''bande dessinée'' comic book book series, series about a village of indomitable Gaulish warriors who adventure around the world and fight th ...
, and ''
The Adventures of Alix'' have been translated into ancient Greek. (''
Onomata Kechiasmena
''Hebdomada Aenigmatum'' is the first magazine of crosswords in Latin.
Contents
The magazine features several crosswords and word puzzles in Latin, a variation of Sudoku with Roman numerals, a section with global news, a comic strip of Incred ...
'') is the first magazine of crosswords and puzzles in ancient Greek. Its first issue appeared in April 2015 as an annex to ''
Hebdomada Aenigmatum''.
Alfred Rahlfs included a preface, a short history of the
Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond ...
text, and other
front matter
Book design is the art of incorporating the content, style, format, design, and sequence of the various components and elements of a book into a coherent unit. In the words of renowned typographer Jan Tschichold (1902–1974), book design, "though ...
translated into ancient Greek in his 1935 edition of the Septuagint; Robert Hanhart also included the introductory remarks to the 2006 revised Rahlfs–Hanhart edition in the language as well.
[Rahlfs, Alfred, and Hanhart, Robert (eds.), ''Septuaginta, editio altera'' (]Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
The Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft ("German Bible Society") is a religious foundation regulated by public law. It is involved in publishing and in spreading the message of the Bible.
The Society publishes the Bible in the original languages and in ...
, 2006). Akropolis World News reports weekly a summary of the most important news in ancient Greek.
Ancient Greek is also used by organizations and individuals, mainly Greek, who wish to denote their respect, admiration or preference for the use of this language. This use is sometimes considered graphical, nationalistic or humorous. In any case, the fact that modern Greeks can still wholly or partly understand texts written in non-archaic forms of ancient Greek shows the affinity of the modern Greek language to its ancestral predecessor.
[
Ancient Greek is often used in the coinage of modern technical terms in the European languages: see English words of Greek origin. Latinized forms of ancient Greek roots are used in many of the ]scientific names
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
of species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
and in scientific terminology.
See also
* Ancient Greek dialects
* Ancient Greek grammar
Ancient Greek grammar is morphologically complex and preserves several features of Proto-Indo-European morphology. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, articles, numerals and especially verbs are all highly inflected.
A complication of Greek grammar is th ...
* Ancient Greek accent
The Ancient Greek accent is believed to have been a melodic or pitch accent.
In Ancient Greek, one of the final three syllables of each word carries an accent. Each syllable contains a vowel with one or two vocalic morae, and one mora in a word ...
* Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...
* Greek diacritics
* Greek language
Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southe ...
* Hellenic languages
Hellenic is the branch of the Indo-European language family whose principal member is Greek. In most classifications, Hellenic consists of Greek alone,Browning (1983), ''Medieval and Modern Greek'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Josep ...
* Katharevousa
Katharevousa ( el, Καθαρεύουσα, , literally "purifying anguage) is a conservative form of the Modern Greek language conceived in the late 18th century as both a literary language and a compromise between Ancient Greek and the contempor ...
* Koine Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
* List of Greek and Latin roots in English
The English language uses many Greek and Latin roots, stems, and prefixes. These roots are listed alphabetically on three pages:
* Greek and Latin roots from A to G
* Greek and Latin roots from H to O
* Greek and Latin roots from P to Z.
Som ...
* List of Greek phrases
Αα
''(h)a''
;
:''Ageōmétrētos mēdeìs eisítō.''
:"Let no one untrained in geometry enter."
:Motto over the entrance to Plato's Academy (quoted in Elias' commentary on Aristotle's '' Categories'': ''Eliae in Porphyrii Isagogen et Aristote ...
(mostly ancient Greek)
* Medieval Greek
Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Fall of Co ...
* Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
* Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the '' terminus ad quem'' for th ...
* Proto-Greek language
The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, ...
* Varieties of Modern Greek
The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolectal variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written form ...
Notes
References
Further reading
* Adams, Matthew. "The Introduction of Greek into English Schools." ''Greece and Rome'' 61.1: 102–13, 2014.
* Allan, Rutger J. "Changing the Topic: Topic Position in Ancient Greek Word Order." ''Mnemosyne: Bibliotheca Classica Batava'' 67.2: 181–213, 2014.
* ''Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek'' (Oxford University Press). series of textbooks on Ancient Greek published for school use.* Bakker, Egbert J., ed. ''A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language.'' Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
* Beekes, Robert S. P. ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek.'' Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.
* Chantraine, Pierre.
Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque
', new and updated edn., edited by Jean Taillardat, Olivier Masson
Olivier Masson (3 April 1922, Paris - 23 February 1997, Paris) was a French linguist interested in Greek, Cypriot and Phoenician epigraphy, especially with the Cypriot syllabary and Cypriot archaeology in general. He was professor of Greek philolo ...
, & Jean-Louis Perpillou. 3 vols. Paris: Klincksieck, 2009 (1st edn. 1968–1980).
* Christidis, Anastasios-Phoibos, ed. ''A History of Ancient Greek: from the Beginnings to Late Antiquity''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
* Easterling, P and Handley, C. ''Greek Scripts: An Illustrated Introduction''. London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, known as the Hellenic Society, was founded in 1879 to advance the study of Greek language, literature, history, art and archaeology in the Ancient, Byzantine and Modern periods. The first Pr ...
, 2001.
* Fortson, Benjamin W. ''Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction.'' 2d ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
* Hansen, Hardy and Quinn, Gerald M. (1992
''Greek: An Intensive Course''
Fordham University Press
The Fordham University Press is a publishing house, a division of Fordham University, that publishes primarily in the humanities and the social sciences. Fordham University Press was established in 1907 and is headquartered at the university's Li ...
* Horrocks, Geoffrey. ''Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers.'' 2d ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
* Janko, Richard. "The Origins and Evolution of the Epic Diction." In ''The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. 4, Books 13–16.'' Edited by Richard Janko, 8–19. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992.
* Jeffery, Lilian Hamilton. ''The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece: Revised Edition with a Supplement by A. W. Johnston.'' Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990.
* Morpurgo Davies, Anna, and Yves Duhoux, eds. ''A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World.'' Vol. 1. Louvain, Belgium: Peeters, 2008.
* Swiggers, Pierre and Alfons Wouters. "Description of the Constituent Elements of the (Greek) Language." In ''Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship.'' Edited by Franco Montanari and Stephanos Matthaios, 757–797. Leiden : Brill, 2015.
External links
Classical Greek Online
by Winfred P. Lehmann and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at th
Linguistics Research Center
at the University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
Online Greek resources
– Dictionaries, grammar, virtual libraries, fonts, etc.
Alpheios
– Combines LSJ, Autenrieth, Smyth's grammar and inflection tables in a browser add-on for use on any web site
Ancient Greek basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
Ancient Greek Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words
(from Wiktionary'
Swadesh list appendix
*
– online editor for Ancient Greek
an online collection of videos on various Ancient Indo-European languages, including Ancient Greek
Grammar learning
A more extensive grammar of the Ancient Greek language written by J. Rietveld
Greek-Language.com
– Information on the history of the Greek language, application of modern Linguistics to the study of Greek, and tools for learning Greek
Free Lessons in Ancient Greek, Bilingual Libraries, Forum
A critical survey of websites devoted to Ancient Greek
– Berkeley Language Center of the University of California
* ttp://www.ntgreek.net/ New Testament Greek
Acropolis World News
– A summary of the latest world news in Ancient Greek, Juan Coderch, University of St Andrews
Classical texts
{{Authority control
Language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
Languages attested from the 9th century BC
9th-century BC establishments in Greece
Languages of Sicily